Component carrying tapes as introduced above have in recent years been used in automatic mounting of non-lead electronic components on workpieces like printed-circuit boards on which electronic circuits are formed. Since commonly applicable electronic components are extremely small in size, however, it has not been easy to take such components out of a carrying tape and accurately position the same on the workpiece. In addition, it has been far more difficult to mixedly mount on the same workpiece various types of non-lead components of different configurations and sizes. Thus, there have not been available any method and apparatus which are sufficiently capable of overcoming such problems, and therefore method and apparatus of such capability have long been expected to be developed.